1979: William Reith Coaches Fencers At The Alcazar Hotel

The fencers’ reflections parried, lunged and thrust, their foils, epee and sabers flashing in the February light. Coach William Reith guided the teenage fencers through the finer points of the sport as they practiced in the fifth-floor ballroom at the Alcazar Hotel in Cleveland Heights.

For the fencers, the penthouse-level ballroom was paradise. “It had chandeliers and alcoves, a sprung wood floor,” Reith remembers. “It had a view of Cleveland before the trees grew up and blocked the view.”

Built in 1923, the Alcazar was designed in a style reminiscent of Moorish Spain, with a hint of Florida kitsch. But by the 1970s, the hotel’s golden era luster had dulled. So Reith, a teacher for several East Side recreation centers, centralized his lessons there. He also seized on the hotel’s name, which roughly translates to “castle,” and dubbed his group the Alcazar Fencing Club. His fencers, including 1984 and 1988 Olympian Steve Trevor, practiced at the Alcazar for roughly a year.

“Finally, [the hotel’s owners] decided we were a little too much for their sedate clients that lived underneath the ballroom, so we moved into some commercial spaces,” says Reith.

The club’s  members remain sharp. A Reith protege, South Euclid native Jason Pryor, earned a 2016 Olympic bid.

The hotel was sold to Montlack Realty in 2014 and converted into apartments.